So contemporary SSB TRAP overlaps with Italian a. The results are more or less equally acceptable. Here is the word by said by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, followed by its first half, which might be from the word balm or bar: Ɑ is also the first element of SSB’s PRICE diphthong, ɑj. The START vowel has raised somewhat in the direction of ʌ, but cardinal 5 ɑ remains a fairly accurate description of it it is of course a long vowel, ɑː. ![]() These two areas of crowding required the use of, respectively, two non-cardinal symbols ɪ and æ, and two secondary cardinals ɒ and ʌ, all four of which tend to be problematic for foreign learners. The first two of these components are plausibly attributed to the fact that RP had crowding towards both the upper front area (FLEECE, KIT, DRESS and TRAP all being non-low) and the lower back area (START, LOT, NORTH and STRUT all being non-high). This had three distinct components: lowering of the front vowels, raising of the mid back vowels, and fronting of the high back vowels. I’ll now discuss these vowel qualities, paying attention to points of divergence from RP, and making one or two minor modifications.Ī comparison of SSB vowels with those of RP indicates what can be thought of broadly as an anticlockwise vowel shift. It’s important to understand that Gimson chose these IPA symbols as ‘explicit’ descriptors of upper class speech circa 1962.īy contrast, the vowel system of contemporary Standard Southern British (SSB) can be described with a high degree of accuracy using just the eight primary cardinal vowels, plus the two central vowels ɵ and ə: Gimson chose IPA symbols comprising most of the primary cardinals, two secondary cardinals ɒ and ʌ, plus the non-cardinals æ, ɪ and ʊ, and the neutral vowel schwa, ə, which belongs in the centre of the vowel space (a further symbol ɜ was added for schwa’s long counterpart). ![]() RP as classically described had a vowel system which was large and phonologically rather disorganized. And occasionally phoneticians feel the need to use entirely non-cardinal symbols to capture more idiosyncratic qualities. For these, phoneticians turn to a ‘secondary’ set of cardinal symbols, eg y, the rounded counterpart of i. For example some languages, including French and German, have contrastive rounding of the non-low front vowels. Sometimes we encounter less common vowels which require symbols other than the primary cardinals. Here is Jones’s quadrilateral, along with a triangular arrangement corresponding more closely to acoustic reality, with demonstrations recorded by Jones himself, starting with the first cardinal vowel i and running anticlockwise to number 8, u. These were conventionally plotted on a quadrilateral according to the estimated positions of the tongue body in the mouth (with the front of the mouth to the left). As systematized by Daniel Jones, there are eight primary cardinals. Phoneticians describe vowels by use of reference qualities or ‘cardinal’ vowels which map out the auditory vowel space. Non-natives are particulary unlikely to be aware of how absurdly old-fashioned the IPA values of the familiar symbols now are to native ears. It’s therefore imperative that users of materials containing these old symbols should be aware of the discrepancy between what they imply and the actual sounds of SSB today. ![]() The tumultuous sociophonetic change of the 1960s meant that Gimson’s description became out of date almost the moment it was published (see my article 1962) but out-of-touch British publishers unfortunately chose to standardize and enforce Gimson’s obsolescent symbols, which then became still more entrenched thanks to dissemination across the internet. Gimson chose in 1962 as a description, “explicit on the phonetic level”, of the upper class speech of that era. The approach here will be point out the many and varied differences between the vowels of contemporary SSB and those embodied in the symbols which A. It is an accent of the south east of England which operates as a prestige norm there and (to varying degrees) in other parts of the British Isles and beyond. Standard Southern British… is the modern equivalent of what has been called ‘Received Pronunciation’ (‘RP’). According to the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, This article attempts to describe the vowels of Standard Southern British (SSB) in a way that is phonetically explicit and accurately represents their phonological categorization.
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